I'm beginning to think that this isn't a conspiracy.

We've all heard it. "My iPhone is listening to me and serving me ads." We've all been suspicious that it has, and we've all snapped ourselves out of believing it.

I've been keeping a log, as it's been happening to me quite a bit with Twitter, where I'll be served ads (usually) two days after I have a conversation about something I've never spoken about before.

Today was by far the creepiest one.

The other day, my friend and I were driving under the Bay Bridge in Oakland. He started telling me about how they recently started using security robots to police the underside of the bridge and prevent trespassing. We talked about it for approximately two minutes or so, and about how robots will take over jobs like that in the near future.

Today, I was scrolling through Twitter. What ad did it serve me?

"Invest in the future of public safety with autonomous security robots!"

I'm not saying this applies to this instance but there are a lot of conspiracies that turn out to be true. IE. Yahoo scanning all emails for the NSA/FBI, NSA's Optic Nerve program, all the other monitoring programs and capabilities leaked by Snowden, secret US medical experiments, etc.

I'm not saying this applies to this instance but there are a lot of conspiracies that turn out to be true. IE. Yahoo scanning all emails for the NSA/FBI, NSA's Optic Nerve program, all the other monitoring programs and capabilities leaked by Snowden, secret US medical experiments, etc.

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It's definitely possible that Apple has used Siri'd "always listening" capability to collect data and serve up ads to us. But it's difficult to imagine Apple running that kind of reputation all risk in order to add to a revenue stream that isn't really all that important to them.

We've all heard it. "My iPhone is listening to me and serving me ads." We've all been suspicious that it has, and we've all snapped ourselves out of believing it.

I've been keeping a log, as it's been happening to me quite a bit with Twitter, where I'll be served ads (usually) two days after I have a conversation about something I've never spoken about before.

Today was by far the creepiest one.

The other day, my friend and I were driving under the Bay Bridge in Oakland. He started telling me about how they recently started using security robots to police the underside of the bridge and prevent trespassing. We talked about it for approximately two minutes or so, and about how robots will take over jobs like that in the near future.

Today, I was scrolling through Twitter. What ad did it serve me?

"Invest in the future of public safety with autonomous security robots!"

Creepy, right?

Click to expand...

Do you have Siri enabled? I don't have Siri enabled so I'm wondering if this would effect me.

I've heard it from a few people. It's not as crazy as you may think. How many apps do you "allow access to microphone"? Instagram, Facebook, Google... if those apps are running it makes sense that key words picked up + location based ads is what's giving you these results.

It's not like anyone reads Terms and Conditions before using an app, and "Access to your microphone" is pretty vague.

I've heard it from a few people. It's not as crazy as you may think. How many apps do you "allow access to microphone"? Instagram, Facebook, Google... if those apps are running it makes sense that key words picked up + location based ads is what's giving you these results.

It's not like anyone reads Terms and Conditions before using an app, and "Access to your microphone" is pretty vague.

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I try and limit microphone usage. I don't have Facebook on my phone anymore and I've blocked mic usage for Insta.

Honestly, I keep a list of this happening because it's happened so often to me. (For instance, last week I talked about how my hands were sweaty and two days later I was served an ad about how to stop sweaty hands.) But this was the most blatant. Autonomous. Security. Robots.

It's definitely possible that Apple has used Siri'd "always listening" capability to collect data and serve up ads to us. But it's difficult to imagine Apple running that kind of reputation all risk in order to add to a revenue stream that isn't really all that important to them.

Click to expand...

I don't know if it's Apple, per se. Facebook and Twitter seem to be incredibly flippant with privacy.

I'm pretty sure it's the "Hi Siri" feature that is the culprit as in order for Siri to turn on when you say "Hi Siri" it implies that the IPhone's microphone is constantly listening, Its just a fact. That's one of the things I turn of right away whenever I get a new iPhone, I keep Siri on but certainly turn off "Hi Siri", Apple may claim otherwise but I do believe that if you have Hi siri turned on then the IPhone might be collecting random detected microphone input hence why the weird coincidences people are expiriencing.

I have definitly been nervous about this for a long time. I really feel like the iPhones listen to us to a point. I don't think they are keeping track of our conversations and I don't think that Apple is listening to us all the time, I think that everything is being done on the iPhone and the data is definitly encrypted. Hopefully.

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